Wednesday, June 17, 2015

I found this deer as roadkill in s small field off the road by my house. It was waaaay too gross to take the whole thing, so I took the parts that were the least meaty: the skull, two jaw halves, and the pelvis.

I got them home and into buckets (metal containers courtesy of my husband who got me about 10 from an abandoned Taco Bell) and covered them in a few handfuls of dirt from my backyard. The skull looks mostly clean in that photo, but the whole fleshy nose and mouth were still there, so I figured a few days buried with some dermestid beetles would help.

I ended up leaving it in the dirt for about a week total before I got it out and used a knife and steel wool to get the last dried fleshy bits off.

After a degrease and a wash, I realized that this little lady had some kind of nose deformity. The front of her face was curved to one side, both on the skull and jaw. Pretty cool! After this, I put the skull and jaws into a 50/50 water/peroxide bath and let them sit for about 24 hours (not quite, I'm impatient).

After a rinse, dry, and a little glue, it came out BEAUTIFULLY! Very proud of this one. I hope to have many more in the future!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

I've been trying to decide what to do with the bones from the dog skeleton I got, I really wanted to articulate the spine. I absolutely did not want to glue them, and I don't have the patience yet to wire them, so I just put it off until I could come up with something. While cleaning today, I found some long wooden dowels next to the washer, and they were just the perfect size to fit through the vertebrae! I'm missing 5, but I managed to put them all together in a way that looks pretty good!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

A friend of mine, Rob, lives out in the middle of nowhere on a nice chunk of land, and he takes care of animals he finds or who wander into his yard. He's had quite a few dogs that he's cared for over the years, and most all of them live long and happy lives. This dog he had got sick, and while Rob was away working two 12 hour shifts, the dog died, and he found the bones a few days later. He said it didn't feel right tobury him, so he graciously gave the bones to me!

The bones were amazingly clean for only being outside three days. They had no tissues left, so I just soaked them in soapy water in my kitchen sink overnight.

Turns out I have an almost complete dog skeleton! I am only missing the tiny bones from the feet, a few tiny tail bones, the axis, and one lumbar vertebra, which were likely taken by small animals. Wild animals like rabbits and squirrels have front teeth that grow forever, so they have to have things to chew on to file them down, and bone perfect for this.

(Here's an example of what can happen to a squirrels teeth if they do not have appropriate things to chew on. Not fun! People who keep animals with teeth that grow as pets have many options for things their pets can chew on, both store bought and natural. Example from www.na2ure.com)

I put the bones together like a giant 3D puzzle, which was actually really fun, I think I could get into skeletal articulation! I'm thinking about wiring them together, but for now they're still layed out like this on my living room floor.

The skull is my favorite part! The two jaws and skull were beautifully intact, and no teeth were missing at all. You can barely see it in the photo, but I glued the jaws together in front where they come apart and used a tiny rubber band to hold them together while the glue dried. I set the jaw in place and let it dry upside-down overnight.

Absolutely WONDERFUL oddities shop just opened in Richmond! The owners are very cool, it is definitely worth checking out if you're close by! Rest In Pieces in The Fan in downtown Richmond!
http://www.restinpiecesrva.com